Chris Stockman knows a thing or two about trying to compete with Grand Theft Auto. As the design director of the original Saints Row, he helped create one of the only franchises that ever came close to rivaling Rockstar’s open-world empire. Now, speaking on FRVR’s podcast, Stockman delivered a brutally honest assessment of the current landscape: you simply can’t compete with GTA anymore, and anyone who tries is setting themselves up for failure.
The entire video game industry is currently holding its breath waiting for GTA 6 to drop in November 2026. And Stockman believes that any developer dreaming of dethroning Rockstar needs to wake up and face reality. You have to be something else, Stockman explained. You can’t compete with them anymore. You can’t. It’s impossible. You can’t make a Western game and try to compete with Red Dead.
Why GTA Became Unbeatable
What makes GTA untouchable isn’t just the quality of the games, though Rockstar’s attention to detail and massive budgets certainly help. According to Stockman, GTA Online transformed the franchise into something beyond gaming. It’s a lifestyle now. It’s propelled it to be beyond just a game, he said.
GTA V launched in 2013, and twelve years later it’s still pulling in players and revenue thanks to GTA Online’s live service model. It’s become a forever game, joining the ranks of World of Warcraft and Counter-Strike 2 as titles that transcend their original release and become permanent fixtures in gaming culture.
No other open-world crime game has managed to build that kind of sustained ecosystem. Saints Row tried. Sleeping Dogs tried. Mafia tried. Watch Dogs tried. All of them were solid games that found audiences, but none became cultural phenomena that players returned to year after year.
The Path Forward for GTA Competitors
Stockman isn’t saying developers should give up on making open-world crime games. He’s saying they need to get smarter about it. Any GTA-like game needs to go back to basics and establish its own clear identity. It’s gotta have its own identify back, it’s gotta have its own thing, but you can’t say, ‘I’m going after GTA’. You can’t. Not anymore. It’s impossible.
Instead of trying to be the next GTA, Stockman argues there’s absolutely room to be a successful number two. The industry is bigger than its ever been in the sense that people hunger for games, Stockman said. People hunger for new experiences. I think it’s entirely possible to be a number two, there’s nothing wrong with trying to be a number two if you play your cards right.
The key is being smart about scope and budget. You don’t go crazy, you be very focused, you don’t look at GTA as a North Star and say, ‘I wanna be that.’ You have a clear identity and this is what you’re trying to do. And you don’t have to be a 100 hour masterpiece, and you just gotta be smart about it.
The Budget Problem
When asked why so many companies are afraid of settling for second place, Stockman pointed to ballooning development budgets. I’m not a bean counter guy, he admitted, but the math is pretty straightforward. It’s a new era, and people need to wake up and realise that you cannot have these hundred-plus million dollar budget games and hope to make any money off of them.
The economics of AAA game development have gotten completely out of control. Games that cost hundreds of millions to make need to sell tens of millions of copies just to break even. When you’re operating at that scale, being number two isn’t good enough. You need to be the absolute biggest hit or your entire studio might shut down.
This is exactly what happened to Saints Row itself. The 2022 reboot was a commercial disappointment, and it led directly to Volition’s closure in August 2023. The studio that created the franchise couldn’t survive a single failed entry because the budgets had grown too large and the expectations too high.
What If GTA 6 Fails
Stockman raised an interesting hypothetical. What if GTA 6 actually turns out to be terrible? It’s going to be the biggest game, probably of all time, and I’ll just say this, Stockman said. The only way for someone to really give them a run for their money is if they have a huge misstep. If it comes out and it’s terrible, God forbid the industry, oh my gosh, right? It’s E.T. all over again, but worse because the budgets.
He’s not predicting disaster. In fact, he explicitly said he doesn’t expect that to happen. But the comparison to E.T., the legendarily bad Atari game that nearly destroyed the entire video game industry in 1983, illustrates just how much is riding on GTA 6. If Rockstar somehow fumbles this release after all the delays and hype, the fallout would be catastrophic not just for Take-Two Interactive, but potentially for the entire AAA gaming sector.
Stockman’s New Saints Row Pitch
Interestingly, Stockman recently revealed that he’s been asked to create a pitch for a Saints Row prequel. He can’t say much about it yet, but his core idea is to go back to the roots of what made SR 1 entertaining in the first place. It was somewhat grounded in reality but also a bit zany too. It had a lot more satirical elements vs the later entries.
This aligns perfectly with his philosophy about competing with GTA. The original Saints Row succeeded not by trying to beat Grand Theft Auto at its own game, but by offering a slightly different flavor. It had personality, humor, and just enough weirdness to stand apart while still delivering the core open-world crime gameplay people wanted.
Later entries went too far in the absurd direction, with Saints Row 4 featuring alien invasions and superpowers. The 2022 reboot tried to recapture something but missed the mark tonally. A prequel that returns to the series’ roots while being smart about budget and scope could be exactly the kind of number two game Stockman is advocating for.
Lessons for the Industry
Stockman’s comments reflect a broader truth about modern gaming. Trying to directly compete with established juggernauts is a losing strategy. Whether it’s open-world games versus GTA, battle royales versus Fortnite, or MMOs versus World of Warcraft, you can’t win by simply making your version of the thing that’s already dominating.
Success comes from finding your own niche, establishing a clear identity, and being realistic about budgets and expectations. Not every game needs to be a hundred-hour epic. Not every project needs to cost two hundred million dollars. Sometimes being a focused, mid-budget game with a specific vision is exactly what the market needs.
The middle tier of gaming has largely disappeared, squeezed between massive AAA blockbusters and tiny indie projects. But that’s exactly the space where GTA competitors could thrive. Games that offer 20-30 hours of quality content with a distinctive style, made for reasonable budgets that don’t require astronomical sales to justify.
FAQs
Who is Chris Stockman?
Chris Stockman served as design director on the original Saints Row game released in 2006. He helped create one of the few franchises that successfully competed with Grand Theft Auto, establishing Saints Row as a viable alternative in the open-world crime genre.
Why does Stockman say you can’t compete with GTA anymore?
Stockman argues that GTA Online has transformed the franchise into a lifestyle and cultural phenomenon beyond just being a game. The series has become a forever game with sustained player engagement and revenue, making it impossible for competitors to directly challenge its dominance.
Is Stockman saying developers shouldn’t make open-world crime games?
No, he’s saying developers need to be smart about it. Games should establish their own clear identity rather than trying to be the next GTA. He believes there’s room for successful number two games if developers are focused, manage budgets wisely, and don’t try to create 100-hour masterpieces.
What happened to Saints Row?
The Saints Row franchise struggled after several entries became too absurd and disconnected from what made the original successful. The 2022 reboot was a commercial disappointment that led to developer Volition shutting down in August 2023. The IP now belongs to Plaion under Embracer Group.
Is there a new Saints Row game coming?
Chris Stockman revealed he’s been asked to pitch a Saints Row prequel that would return to the roots of the original game, with a more grounded but satirical tone. However, nothing has been officially announced yet and the project is still in the pitch stage.
What did Stockman say about game development budgets?
Stockman stated that the industry needs to wake up and realize you cannot have hundred-plus million dollar budget games and hope to make money off them. He believes ballooning budgets are why companies are afraid to settle for being number two in any genre.
Could GTA 6 actually fail?
Stockman doesn’t expect GTA 6 to fail, but he acknowledged it as a hypothetical possibility. If it did happen, he compared it to the E.T. disaster from 1983, but worse because the budgets, suggesting a GTA 6 failure could have catastrophic industry-wide consequences.
What makes GTA Online so special?
According to Stockman, GTA Online transformed the franchise into a lifestyle rather than just a game. It created a sustained ecosystem where players return year after year, making it a forever game like World of Warcraft or Counter-Strike 2, which no other open-world crime game has achieved.
Conclusion
Chris Stockman’s comments aren’t pessimistic, they’re realistic. The days of challenging GTA head-on are over. Rockstar has built something too big, too culturally embedded, and too financially successful to topple through direct competition. But that doesn’t mean the open-world crime genre is dead. It means developers need to get smarter, more focused, and more willing to carve out their own identities rather than chasing someone else’s success. If Stockman gets the chance to bring Saints Row back with that philosophy in mind, it might just prove his own point. You don’t need to beat GTA to succeed. You just need to be something different, something focused, and something that knows exactly what it wants to be.